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Foundry parking garage opening pushed to Aug. 31

About 300 spaces will be free and available to public in downtown Loveland facility

By Julia Rentsch

Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
08/09/2018 10:05:35 PM MDT

Mike Scholl, economic development manager for the city of Loveland, center left, and facility operations manager Michael Hogan, left, walk across the top floor of the new parking garage at the Foundry redevelopment project in downtown Loveland. (Jenny Sparks / Loveland Reporter-Herald)

The much-anticipated downtown Loveland parking garage will now be open and operating at the end of August, according to most recent city of Loveland estimates.

The garage is part of The Foundry project being built between Lincoln and Cleveland avenues just north of First Street by Brinkman. Though 155 parking spaces are set aside for Foundry residents, the remainder of the 460-space garage was financed by the city of Loveland and will be open to the public.

City economic development manager Mike Scholl said there are still some kinks to work out with the garage's "final construction details," which was originally slated to open by the middle of next week.

He said he wants to make sure Lovelanders know that around Aug. 31 anyone will be able to turn left onto Second Street from North Lincoln Avenue and enter the garage from the south. Eventually, the garage will also be accessible to those traveling southbound on South Cleveland Avenue, but that piece of Second Street will not be open until the Cleveland-side mixed-use apartment and retail building is finished, he said.

There will be no time limit on parking at the start, but the city might need to start developing some rules if people start acting (or, that is, parking) in ways that impede the public at large from using the garage as it was intended, such as extended overnight parking, Scholl said.

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"City Council was very clear that they do not want to charge fees in the garage," Scholl said. "...We're excited to see how it impacts downtown."

Parking in downtown Loveland has been a long-maligned topic, especially with the advent of the HIP Streets plan intended to give the downtown a more pedestrian-friendly, cohesive look. When the council approved the plan in December, many Lovelanders voiced opposition to the project's proposal to eliminate 162 streetside parking spaces.

But, Scholl said, don't panic yet: the project is only in its conceptual stages and could look much different when it's built due to a variety of variables involved in the construction process.

The city is currently undertaking a parking study, headed up by city planner David Eisenbraun, to assess current demand for downtown Loveland parking prior to the opening of the garage, Scholl said. After it opens, the city will go back and assess again to see how the garage impacts the situation.

"We have a lot more parking than people realize," Scholl said. "What we need to do is manage those spaces better."

To do that, traffic enforcement is part, but not all of the equation, he said. Managing spaces also involves marketing the lots that are available, in case drivers don't know where they are, and working with downtown employees to make sure they know where they can park their cars during working hours.

Overall, Scholl was optimistic about Loveland's parking situation and what a busy downtown means for the city.

"Having a little bit of a parking problem is not a bad thing," he said. "It just means people want to be in your downtown."